45 | AS DARK AS THE OCEAN
SONG SUGGESTION: The Last of The Real Ones by Fall Out Boy
The happy atmosphere had suddenly turned into one of screams and blood. The warm red liquid splattered the cobblestone road and managed to spray across Greyson's face, chunks of loose flesh falling from the sky around her. She fell to her knees as the explosion triggered another, leaving her ears ringing and the world behind her a blur.
Crawling to the injured man, Greyson found herself beside Katniss, deep in a puddle of blood and missing limbs. As she hovered over Boggs, she felt her own blood leave her face at the drastic condition he was in. One look at him and she knew he wasn't going to make it, they didn't have the kind of equipment they needed to perform surgery; or time. She knew that Snow was being informed on the random explosion outside of the city, he was a desperate man looking for blood and he would do anything to watch her and the rebels suffer.
Hands slick with blood, Greyson felt the air escape her as Homes had suddenly pushed her to the side, yanking open a first-aid kit. Boggs gripped Katniss' wrist. He looked at the two girls, his face tired and pale with death nearing around the corner. "The Holo," it was an order.
She scrambled to search for it with Katniss, finding it rammed into a stairwell with one of his boots, a chalk of white bone poking out of the leather. Shuddering, Greyson grunted as she handed it to her commander, the blood already beginning to dry on it.
Around her, the team had formed a protective, weak circle around them, but what frightened her most was the pair of ocean eyes that were in absence. Boggs and Katniss were having a rushed conversation, something about her name and the Holo. Greyson was scrambling to her feet as she found a head of bronze hair trying to revive Messalla, who was flung back into a building by the explosion. Jackson was yelling into a field communicator to send medics, but Greyson knew it was no use, Boggs couldn't even hold his own head up.
"Finnick," Greyson called, her voice hoarse with tremors. He whipped his head around as Greyson ran over to him and Messalla, helping to pick up the man with as much strength as she could muster. She cried out as she felt her arm scrape against a ragged piece of metal wire, gritting her teeth as they heaved the man further up the block.
A shadowy figure with stark blonde hair was going mad in the distance, and she knew at once that it was Peeta. Her mind went instantly to Johanna, who had been extremely quiet until now. She saw her tackle Peeta to the ground, both of them rolling on the ground like animals.
"Shit," she heard Finnick curse. And then she saw it. Black, opaque oil fountained from an unknown hole down the street where they had first came from. Her hold on Messalla faltered as she saw the height of the wave grow to an unsettling height. "Run!" Finnick shouted, a vein in his neck straining as he picked up the pace, his feet moving quickly.
Every step Greyson took she felt her heart thump in her chest, her palms sweaty with nerves. Gale and Leeg 1 started shooting at anything they could hit, another explosion going off, opening up a hole in the street. Minesweep, Greyson thought briefly as she heaved, her knees beginning to ache. Finnick pushed on forward, his face set into a determined scowl.
Further up ahead of them, Katniss and Homes started dragging Boggs where Gale and Leeg 1 were, his painful cries emitting a sad song into the pungent air. "Come on," Finnick growled, grabbing Messalla from Greyson and throwing the man over his shoulder. He latched onto Greyson's hand like a lifeline and started sprinting to catch up with the others. They were far behind them. Greyson kept looking straight ahead.
A flash of blonde hair jumped at the sight of Katniss, yanking her back and throwing her to the ground. Peeta stood over her with wide, dilated eyes that had the hint of madness in them. The same as a mutt. Mitchell tackled Peeta in an attempt to capture him, but Peeta, being as strong as he was, launched Mitchell backwards toward the massive wall of darkness.
A snap filled Greyson's ears, a sharp agonizing cry, and more grunting from a few others. Choking on the fumes from the black wave, Greyson's eyes watered as she saw Mitchel strung up in a net of barbed wire. Katniss and Homes were still dragging Boggs' body, and Gale and Leeg 1 had begun shooting at the cables holding Mitchell up after gunning down a door at the corner of the block. The wave to the tar-like ocean had started to crest and lean forward, ever so slowly beginning to fall.
"Finnick," Greyson panted, "where's Johanna?"
He barely shook his head, glancing around at the chaos that bred around him. "I don't know," he said defeatedly.
"I'm right here, you fuckers," she breathed, running beside them. "Can't get rid of me that easily."
Katniss and Homes were far ahead of them, and Greyson could feel her chest burning with fearful thoughts running through her mind. "We're not going to make it," she cried loudly as she heard the soaring splash shake the ground from behind her. Last she checked, Gale and Leeg 1 were still there.
"We will," Finnick panted, tightening his grip on her hand. She had a flashback then, to when a same encounter was happening, in a different time, in a different place, but with the same man behind the gun and herself and Finnick at the bullet. She wasn't going to sacrifice herself this time, not for the boy Katniss loved or to save Finnick, but for herself, no matter how greedy it made her feel.
Her feet hit the inside of a velvet pink living room, all of them following the trail of blood that led down a hallway with photos strung up of strangers, their gleaming smiles sending hatred spiraling to her queasy stomach. They entered a small kitchen, where mostly everyone was. Someone was kicking behind a door off to the side, which she assumed was Peeta. Leeg 1 and Cressida followed in after them, but a frantic Katniss screamed out Gale's name.
The young man entered the room shortly after, coughing wildly, shutting the door behind him and shouting, "fumes!"
Castor and Pollux began to stuff every crack and open crevice with towels and aprons, as Gale wretched into the kitchen sink.
"Mitchell?" Homes asked. Leeg 1 shook her head.
Greyson felt someone yank her to the floor, Katniss was grabbing her wrist. Boggs' eyes were still open, his lips moving surely, as if he was repeating something. He gave them both a look of urgency as she lowered her head down to his lips, just as Katniss had done seconds ago. "Don't trust them. Don't go back. Kill Peeta and Johanna. Do what you came to do," he whispered harshly.
"What?" Greyson whispered, sharing the confused expression with Katniss. "Boggs? Boggs?" He was dead, eyes still open, staring at the dreadful world.
She sat back on her feet, glancing down to see that Katniss held the Holo, stuck in her hand by Boggs' dried blood. Peeta's kicking seemed to cease, and all together stop.
Finnick breathed heavily, "he's gone?" Katniss and Greyson nodded. "We need to get out of here. Now. We just set off a streetful of pods. You can bet they've got us on surveillance tapes."
"Count on it," Castor agreed. "All the streets are covered by surveillance cameras. I bet they set off the black wave manually when they saw us taping the propo."
"Our radio communicators went dead almost immediately. Probably an electromagnetic pulse device. But I'll get us back to camp. Give me the Holo." Jackson reached for the device, but Katniss held it to her chest instinctively.
"No. Boggs gave it to me," she said willfully.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jackson snapped bitterly. Greyson stood up, Finnick helping her by grabbing under her arms. She knew if there was to be a fight, she would have a better chance on her feet.
"It's true," said Homes. "He transferred the prime security clearance to her while he was dying. I saw it."
"Why would he do that?" demanded Jackson.
Greyson knew what Katniss was thinking, Boggs' own words ringing in her ears. "Don't trust them. Don't go back. Kill Peeta and Johanna. Do what you came to do." It didn't make sense. Maybe the part where he said not to trust them, she could understand with Coin, but who else could she not trust? Jackson? Castor? His words were either a last resort or a real justified answer to what she had been asking all along. She knew she couldn't kill Peeta or Johanna, she wouldn't. They did nothing wrong, even though Peeta was slightly responsible for Mitchell's death, he had been programmed to kill. And as for Johanna, she didn't understand why Boggs wanted her dead. Was there something he wasn't allowed to tell her?
"Because Greyson and I are on a special mission for President Coin. I think Boggs was the only one who knew about it." Katniss clarified to Jackson. Greyson swallowed what was left of her wits as eyes darted between the three women.
"To do what?" Jackson asked, unconvinced.
"To assassinate President Snow before the loss of life from this war makes our population unsustainable," Greyson found herself talking, her feet on a tightrope of lies and truth. She knew that if she fell, she would find herself and everyone she loved dead and in a hole in the cold ground, buried with white roses. She swore to protect Katniss, so that was what she was going to do.
"I don't believe you," Jackson spat at Greyson, causing Finnick to step in front of her. "As your current commander, I order you to transfer the prime security clearance over to me," she ordered Katniss.
"No," she said stubbornly. "That would be in direct violation of President Coin's orders."
Half of the squad pointed their guns at Jackson and the other half at Katniss and Greyson. The tension in the room had risen a couple hundred notches, just as Cressida spoke. "It's true. That's why we're here. Plutarch wants it televised. He thinks if we can film the Mockingjays assassinating Snow, it will end the war."
Jackson nodded to the closet and a glaring Johanna, "and why are they here?"
Greyson was at a loss for words, and so was Katniss. Cressida saved them again by saying, "because the two post-Games interviews with Caesar Flickerman were shot in President Snow's personal quarters. Plutarch thinks Peeta may be of some use as a guide in a location we have little knowledge of."
"We have to go!" Gale cut in urgently. "I'm following Katniss and Greyson. If you don't want to, head back to camp. But let's move!"
Homes had unlocked the closet and heaved an unconscious Peeta over his shoulder, "ready."
"Boggs?" Leeg 1 asked.
"We can't take him. He'd understand," Finnick answered her, his voice an empty shell. Greyson watched as he unstrapped Boggs' gun from his shoulder and slung it over his own. "Lead on, Soldier Everdeen, Soldier Grey."
"I don't know how to use this. Boggs said you would help me," Katniss feebly told Jackson. "He said I could count on you."
Jackson scowled in her direction, snatching the Holo from Katniss. An intersection came up as she typed in a demand.
"If we go out the kitchen door, there's a small courtyard, then the back side of another corner apartment unit. We're looking at an overview of the four streets that meet at the intersection," Jackson read.
Katniss sighed, thinking. "Put on your masks. We're going out the way we came in." The room filled with objections from people, but Greyson, Finnick, Gale, and Johanna stayed silent. Katniss raised her voice, "if the wave was that powerful, then it may have triggered and absorbed other pods in our path."
Pollux made a few signs to his brother. "It may have disabled the cameras as well," Castor translated for him. "Coated the lenses."
Gale placed one of his boots onto the counter, digging around in the drawers until he pulled out a butterknife, scraping away the blackness that had touched the edges of his shoe. "It's not corrosive. I think it was meant to either suffocate or poison us."
"Probably our best shot," said Leeg 1.
Greyson put her mask on as everyone else did theirs. Finnick put Peeta's on, and Cressida and Leeg 1 picked up a still woozy Messalla. Seeing Katniss wait patiently near the exit of the kitchen, she found herself standing by the girl. "Lead on, Girl On Fire," she managed a smile.
Katniss gave Greyson a minuscule smile, that when she exited the room, disappeared quickly. Greyson felt Finnick by her side, allowing her to go first after Katniss. The floor of the hallway was coated in half an inch of the black goo, and when she looked down, her foot left no imprint in the sludge. The farther she ventured throughout the house, the more darkness she saw. Katniss opened the door, exiting the apartment with caution.
The houses and tall apartment buildings were layered in a thick, shining coat of black gel, the sun beating down on it. She looked up at the sky to see a black mass hanging over the street, a hand and the barrel of a gun protruding out from it. Mitchell. Katniss stood silently, eyeing the haunting structure until everyone had gathered out onto the street. Her voice was gravelly as she spoke, yet strong. "If anyone needs to go back, for whatever reason, now is the time," she said, "no questions asked, no hard feelings."
Nobody moved. Greyson's head urged her to move, to run back to District Four where the ocean kissed the land, but her heart knew better. She looked onward, to the depths of the Capitol, where it's sparkling, picture perfect buildings sat in the distance, waiting to be burned.
A/N: if you don't look at my profile on a regular basis (which would be quite worrisome), then you would know that i've gotten sick over the past few days. nothing big, just enough for me to miss two days of school (which my parents weren't happy about). i'm sorry for the delay in update but school has been crazy and i've been trying to transition from homework to sleep to actually writing. i won't go on about my boring week but i did manage to start watching Outlander, which has given me a lot of inspiration to write.
i apologize if this chapter was too gruesome for you, but i mean, it wasn't even that bad, but then again i'm used to the gory stuff lmao, and i think this one of my favorite chapters, writing wise at least. i would like to thank all of you who have gotten this book to 166k+ it means the world to me, as i express on the daily, and i hope that we can get it to at least 200k by the time this book has finished. i'm not one for long authors notes, so i'll see you all soon! xx